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Vegas ax attack a mystery so far

Posted: Sunday, February 14, 2010

By Associated Press

Police haven't determined what drove a man to allegedly attack his bedridden sister-in-law with a medieval-style battle ax and then go on a rampage outside a Las Vegas home, hacking a 4-month-old baby to death and critically wounding the child's mother.

"We don't know why he wanted to injure the woman or why he attacked the people on the street, just that he did," Las Vegas police homicide Sgt. Russell Shoemaker said Friday. "We'll figure this out some day. For right now, all we have is theories."

Harold E. Montague, 33, told investigators he remembered nothing about the attack, and police said he didn't know the woman or the boy he is accused of hacking with the blade of an ax before noon Thursday on a sunny street east of Las Vegas Boulevard.

"He claims he blacked out. He said he doesn't remember anything," police homicide Lt. Lewis Roberts said. Montague was interviewed by homicide investigators and taken to a hospital before he was booked into the Clark County jail.